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news
Video: Watch Evandro Portela's record-breaking 202 kilometre per hour ride
Evandro Portela has released a video which shows his record-breaking ride from last month when he achieved a draft-assisted speed of 202 kilometres an hour.
The Brazilian made his attempt on his own world record of 184 kilometres per hour on the BR277 road between Curitiba and São José dos Pinhais.
The road was closed for 30 minutes to allow for the record attempt, which saw Portela post the highest draft assisted speed ever achieved by a cyclist on a public road.
He battled a headwind to reach the speed of 50 kilometres per hour ahead of getting into the vacuum created made by a fairing on the rear of the Subaru WRX 4X4 350 HP Turbo car the pacing him.
The video, which includes shots from a helicopter and moto as well as from inside the support car, shows Portela getting up to the magic 200 kilometres per hour mark, before breaking it to the jubilation of all involved.
Afterwards, he said: “It’s a great feeling, a dream come true and a great challenge.
“It wasn’t easy. I faced a headwind of 20 kilometres an hour, which made my progress very difficult.
“When I was at 190 kilometres an hour, I couldn’t see anything, the rear wheel was already in the air, but I managed to control the bike and keep pedalling.”
The highest draft-assisted speed ever achieved on a bicycle is the 268.831 kilometres an hour set at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, United States, by Fred Rompelberg of the Netherlands in October 1995.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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8 comments
Are you not worried about the truck driver braking suddenly?
From someone who fairly regularly slipstreams trucks at 100 kph, the 20 mph head wind was actually to his advantage as it creates a larger 'vacuum' behind his shield. Really, at those speeds the only limiting factor is gradient and pedal rpm. On a very flat road almost no pedalling is required to maintain pretty much any speed as the vortex behind the shield provides a wind against your back. The interesting part is removing yourself from the slipstream. At 100 kph it's quite a handful. Can't imagine what it's like at 200 kph.
It looked like he was going to fall out of 'the box' there for a few moments; I dread to think what would have happened to him if he had been hit by a 100mph wind.
He was wearing a helmet, he would have been fine.
As a demonstration of aerodynamic drag effect, this is excellent. If Mr. Portela is a physics or engineering teacher, then chapeau to him. As an athletic achievement, on the other hand, these sorts of records are all a bit meh, in my book.
Guy Martin is just finishing his tea before popping out to take the record from him
Could've won something on Strava if he kept it up for 2-3 hours more...
That looked sketchy as fook, balls of steel and great handling skills but the whole thing looked massively less in control from start to finish than his 124km/h run which was like a pootle round the local greenway by comparison.